An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Sally Potter is a director who consistently tries to break down barriers (Orlando, The Tango Lesson) but she may have gone a step too far for her loyal audiences with this murder mystery set within the New York fashion scene.
It shows neither the city nor its glitzy catwalks. The mystery is played out by a group of actors, some stars — such as Jude Law, Judi Dench and Steve Buscemi — some unknowns, in one unfurnished room where the plain background changes colour as we watch. Each actor does a series of brief solo cameos to the camera, which is operated by a young boy intent on dissecting the case for a school project.
The murdered woman is a troublesome catwalk diva whose death has caused a huge scandal, and Potter’s screenplay attempts to unwind the mystery as the evidence mounts so that we have a pretty good idea of whodunnit before the end. And it is clearly about the dehumanising effect of the pursuit of celebrity and power.
She calls the film an example of poor cinema, appropriate for lean times. It is certainly a brave effort, done on a minuscule budget with its well-known players taking far less than their usual salaries. But it is a hard, though sometimes amusing, watch at around 100 minutes and doesn’t always deliver as intended.
Even so, the playing is fine with Dianne Wiest, as the fashion house manageress, David Oyelowo, as a Shakespeare‑quoting New York detective, and Buscemi, as a cynical photographer, particularly good.
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It may be about fashion, but the only clothing metaphor that fits "Rage" is the one about the Emperor who isn't wearing any.
Indeed those verbally gifted critics who have managed to find a nice way to be non-commital about Sally Potter's latest indulgence could not speak as eloquently as the embarrassingly large portion of the audience who left the BFI's premiere BEFORE the great autreusse's Q&A.
Pity for them - they missed the only amusing note of the evening: Sally's absurd prattling about how watching a film on a mobile is a uniquely personal experience, which called to mind the verbiage in the "Don't let a mobile spoil your movie" advert.
By creating a fashion satire which fails by being even more pretentious and insubstantial than it's ephemeral subject, Potter has outdone her previous worst effort, the post-911 "Yes", in which she appeals to the West to better understand "the other" - by casting an Armenian as an Arab, an ignorance which led to those whom the film was intended to flatter taking the greatest offence.
Perhaps it's time for someone to tell Sally that her teachers were only trying to be nice to an annoyingly opinionated student when they told her she was gifted.
- James Binkster, London, England
Morning:
13°c
Derek Malcolm's rating
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